Update 12/4/10: I made a video for ya. (Well, it was originally for Genderfork, but it’s for you, too.)
Also: I’m naked in it.

This is the week of shaking trees. Two days ago, I put out a call for stable employment (for the first time in six years). My consulting work has gotten thin and bumpy, and it’s time for something to change.

There’s another idea that’s been on the table for awhile now, though, and I think it’s time I told you about it.

I want to build an online marketplace for gender-variant clothing solutions.

Not a store where I sell to you, but a service like Etsy and Ebay where we sell to each other, in a focused, supportive community. And while we’re at it, we also trade all sorts of tips and inspirations on how best to look the way we want, gender-be-damned.

You know what I’m talking about. Tuxes for hips and breasts. Size 16 extra-wide high heels. Custom alterations, custom orders, custom tailoring. Hot unisex indie designer labels. Hand-made t-shirts. That awesome skirt from your closet that doesn’t fit you anymore. A good chest binder. That amazing jacket you found at a thrift store for $5 that you want to resell. And while we’re at it, let’s bring in styles from every subculture that celebrates androgyny, which is pretty much all of them.

I’ve been thinking about this for a year.

I talked to the staff at Genderfork last winter, and we agreed it should be a separate-but-friendly project (Genderfork is run like activism; this would be run like a business).

I did a bunch of research on software options, and had to table the idea for awhile because a good multi-seller marketplace solution didn’t exist. But I’ve got one now. It came out in September. We can do this.

I have the web development, the project management, and the community organizing skills to make this happen. And I love the people this will serve. Relentlessly.

All I need is time and money.

You know. That stuff.

I’m in talks with a family member who can give me a loan, but they need to know that there’s enough support for the project to warrant the risk. Also? Loans are stressful. It would be awesome if we could offset it with some community support. So…

Kickstarter is a service that lets community members donate to projects (and receive thank-you gifts based on their donation amount), to meet funding goals. The goal and timeline are set in advance. If the goal is met, the donations go through and the project happens. If the goal isn’t met, the donations don’t happen, and we consider it closed.

This is a test.

If we can rally a ton of community support, I will go all in on this plan and make it happen as quickly as is humanly possible. If we get only moderate support, I will take a day job and build this project slowly, in my off-hours. If support seems slim, I’ll consider it closed.

**How You Can Help Without Giving Me Money**

Do you want this to happen? Help me convince the world that it matters, that we need these clothing solutions, and that the best way to get them is to come together and create them collaboratively.

Here’s how you can do that. I want you to make a video of yourself explaining why this is important to you. Use your phone, your webcam, or whatever you have nearby. Don’t make it fancy; just make it real. Tell us what matters to you, what you need, or what you have to give.

I will collect these videos and edit them together to make a promotional video for the kickstarter campaign. Or maybe multiple videos, if you send me lots of great stuff.

The more faces we can show, the better.

Your voice will help me convince others that this project deserves their support. That it needs to happen.

How to get your video to me…

Chances are your video will be bigger than the average reasonable email size. So here are some options (just pick one):

A) Use Google Docs to upload the file. Then share it with genderplayful@gmail.com

B) Get a Dropbox account, put it in the public folder, and email genderplayful@gmail.com the URL to that file.

A Note on Privacy: I plan to use your face and your voice, but not your name, unless (maybe) you say it in the video.

Deadline: This Tuesday. As Soon As You Can. I’m going to start pushing things out to the world this week, so the faster the better, but I’ll continue to make use of material that comes in later, too. It all makes a difference.

This will matter.

Make a video. Do it for everyone who needs this marketplace, but isn’t ready to say so out loud. Do it this weekend. This is your art project. Go.

Love,
Sarah

Update: If making a video really isn’t your cup of tea, another thing you can do is write a paragraph explaining why this is important to you. You can leave that in a comment below or email me at genderplayful@gmail.com, and it will find the right audience. Thank you so much!

I love this idea. I am, however, one of those people who just Does Not Do Video. If I can help in some other way, let me know; and once you have the Kickstarter campaign up, I will absolutely send it money.

Cow, thank you so much for pointing this out. What would also help is writing a paragraph in support of the idea. Write down the important details for why you think this matters. You can leave as a comment here or email me: genderplayful@gmail.com

“I decided this year that I was going to take the leap: I was going to be true to myself and start dressing in ways that make me happy. I marched off to the clothes store in a fit of determination that the men’s section was no longer off-limits to me–I’d wear whatever I liked! Unfortunately I discovered that although I might’ve been made to wear men’s clothing, it certainly wasn’t made to fit me. It’s too big. It’s too long. It hangs awkwardly. It looks BAD–and not only do I like to look good, but I have a job and I need to look professional for it. So what to do when you’re androgynous, female-bodied, binding your chest, and rather allergic to the women’s clothes that actually fit you? Every now and then I’ll find that elusive piece of clothing: designed to look androgynous but cut to fit a female body–well-tailored, but without hugging my curves–but these things are few and far between, and in the mean time I’m not content to wear things that make me cry when I look in the mirror. I’m not content to shop in the “little boys’” section like my petite transmen friends. I need a place to find the clothes that make me look like me.”

I love Kickstarter and love how many cool projects it has launched. I also love you and love how many cool projects you have brought to life – and this idea is pure brilliance. I don’t see how this won’t work. SO exciting!

While it’s a slightly smaller marketplace, you might want to consider ArtFire over Etsy. Basic account is free, Pro account is around $15.95 a month, and that’s all you pay. No insertion fees, no percentage taken out from purchases. Pro has a ton more features than basic. It’s a smaller marketplace but it appears they’re working much harder on getting listings into search engines and actually getting people’s stuff SEEN. There’s a ton of info on there, including an article comparing artfire to etsy.
I’ve been on Etsy for years, but the fees, small as they may be, are starting to pile up. I opened a basic account on AF and will probably start by listing my sewn and crocheted items there while leaving jewelry on Etsy.http://www.artfire.com

“My hair cut don’t look right.
My clothes don’t fit just right.
Them Boy clothes are too big
and the girl’s too tight.
My feet they look to small
and I aint very tall.
I fight with my mom every time I go to the mall.”
~Joe Stevens, lyrics from “Daughterson”

We all and the right to dress ourselves in ways that make us feel great and proud of our bodies. For some of us getting dressed is more complicated and frustrating than just a quick trip to the mall. so we get creative. we shop vintage, we shop the kid’s section, we shop sale racks, we shop specialty sites online. we buy sewing machines and make friends with a good tailor. we learn our curves and lack-there-of and we learn how to make the curves flat and the flat places curvy. Eventually we work it out and make peace with our wardrobes and right now that’s where it ends. We have no way to pass off what we learned to the next person who storms out of the mall convinced they will never, ever, in their life, ever, be able to wear what they want and have it look the way they want. Genderplayful will just us a place to say: Take a deep breath. Let me show you how I tailor my shirts, I think it will help and while we’re at it, where on earth did you get those fabulous jeans?

I was setting up to make a video, but I found out that my camera can’t record sound. Whoops! So here’s the script I wrote up for it, and feel free to use it any way you want:

I’m excited about Sarah Dopp’s gender-variant clothing marketplace. Several of the important people in my life are transgendered, including my husband and my girlfriend, and helping them realise their true selves means a lot to me.
As a playful dresser and a cosplayer, I’m also personally fond of options. I love clothing, I love to sew and design, and I love to play with different styles. I would like to support, sell, and shop at a marketplace that focuses on gender variance.

My name is Tommy, I’m 20, and I’m a crossdresser. I’m a dude, but I like wearing skirts and dresses and pretty things. I’m pretty small, so finding things in my size isn’t too hard, but it’d be nice to have a place where I can get the clothes I want without the Weird Looks. Also, maybe some dude’s shirts in girly prints would be awesome.

Sarah, just a random suggestion in light of Cat’s post: you may want to look into talking to niche communities like cosplayers, the steampunk folks, etc- costume-based subcultures really. They are quite DIY anyway and the general atmosphere of the more geeky ones seems friendly to these interests :)

This sounds like the Best.Idea.Ever. I would totally support a kickstarter campaign. Here is why:

My spouse is transgender, but has a very male-shaped body (and NO hips), and large feet. The clothes that make her happy don’t fit right, and people assume she is shopping for me. I am genderfluid, with a very female-shaped body, and the mens pants I want don’t fit my curvy hips and the adult mens shirts are too big in the shoulders but the boys don’t fit across my bound chest. When I shop, people assume I am shopping for my “husband”. It’s hard to hunt things down, and when we find things we like, it’s hard to deal with judgment and assumptions. This marketplace would give us a place to shop comfortably, and network and learn from other people who face the same dilemmas as us every day in their own wardrobes and in the stores of the world.

I’d love to see some support from the fatshion community, since they also experience the difficulty of not finding clothes that suit them. The drag communities would be great in terms of resources and tips (like how to adjust your clothes to fit the shape I’m after).

I’m cisgender and don’t really have a specific gender-based style – some days I like butch-of-center, some days I want curves and boobs. (Speaking of which: I’ll claim that wrap top you said was “so not you” off you if you want ;D) I do hear you in that it can be hard to find clothes that just fit OK full stop – because of my curves I end up being XXL back in Malaysia and finding clothes are a PAIN. I’m a performance artist too and some of my work involves some level of genderplay, so it’d be great to find clothes that allow me to play around with my gender presentation.

My qualm though is that if I come in from the perspective of a cisgender performer wanting the occasional costume, I’ll seem like I’m devaluing and cheapening the experiences of non-cis people whose needs with clothing are more severe and permanent. What do you reckon?

As the partner and soon to be husband to a MTF transgender woman, and as a couple who works with the trans community to help newly out and/or struggling to maintain trans people, I think this is a GREAT idea!! I’ll start working on a video this week. Looking forward to having an online resource that we can direct people too as well. Sometimes you just don’t have enough time in a day to do what you have to and help the people you want/need to help. This would be a seriously beneficial option to have. Wish I could offer financial support, but what I can and will do is spread the word as well and let people know what you are trying to do.

[...] 1) Make a video of yourself telling a camera why this is so important. This will have a HUGE impact on the public fundraising. If I can edit together a collage video showing many people asking for this, you know it will hit home. (More info on how to get your video to me is over here.) [...]

“My qualm though is that if I come in from the perspective of a cisgender performer wanting the occasional costume, I’ll seem like I’m devaluing and cheapening the experiences of non-cis people whose needs with clothing are more severe and permanent.”

@Tiara, I agree it’s important to be aware of the different levels of need going on here, but if that awareness goes so far as to create a hierarchy that excludes people, we will have failed. This needs to be for all of us. (Also, HELL YES on fatshionista celebration for all genders.)

Genderplayful matters to me because I have such difficulty shopping for clothes that flatter me. I usually end up having to look through the boys’ section in order to find any masculine clothing that is my size. Even then, the length is usually all wrong for what will fit my frame. Clothes for hips and clothes for breasts in all shades of masculine and feminine are welcome!

This would be FANTASTIC! Honestly, It’s so hard to find a good binder because of larger-than-normal chest plus Somewhere with discreet shipping would be awesome, because a package that has the word “chest binder size asihsahf” or whatever can be really hard to explain to your cis-gender mother. -.-’

Sarah, I have been telling my transgender and genderqueer friends about your idea and sending them links. Can’t guarantee anything, but hopefully they will check it out and offer some ideas or support. But I am getting the word out.

The idea of androgynous or gender-irrelevant clothing intrigues me. Most androgynous clothing I’ve seen would only fit the people on Lookbook, i.e., tall and incredibly slim. Nothing against Lookbook, just saying most of us ain’t built like that. Maybe androgynous for the rest of us.

I absolutely LOVE this idea and will try to support it any way I can. As a transmasculine person with an annoyingly curvy body (that I won’t be able to change for some time, for a variety of reasons) it’s almost impossible for me to find well-fitting masculine or gender-neutral clothing that is not just jeans and a t-shirt. Hell, even those are hard to find a lot of the time! A resource for things like that would be a dream come true.

(I’ll try to record a video, too, but I’ll have to figure out the lighting situation. Stupid dark winter days.)

WOW. Have just spread the word on my twitters. Don’t have the money (unless my lil jewellery biz does really well before xmas), but will be doing a vid. I’m a nascent fashion designer, in the diy-est possible sense, and I’ve been thinking about this for a while! LOVE.

YES, YES, YES. Thousands of yes’s. I emailed this link to my Austin queer community peeps, and I posted, and I hope that funnels more support in your direction. This idea is *fun* for me — it’s exciting and wonderfully conceived — but I know that many people need it for more fundamental reasons than I do, on a much more urgent, emotional basis, and especially on their behalf, you’ve got my support 150%. Zoom!

[...] things about transness: transwoman assaulted at Kohl’s, police more or less ignore it, and a call for feedback/assist from someone who’d like to start a “genderplayful marketplace.” Think Etsy for [...]

Even as a more-or-less cisgendered person I would love something like this. I really love the look of men’s pants, particularly cargo pants and looser jeans, but I have hips and a booty and so I have learned that the men’s section is off limits to me.

Yes, I’d be all for this. While I can reasonably fit into men’s clothes to an extent, I have to be more on the thin side to do so. I let myself gain a few pounds and the hips start to become a big issue. Being bigender, being able to wear men’s clothing when I feel the need is important to me. Not to mention, even when I’m feeling more feminine I don’t care for the mainstream look for women. I’d love a place for all sorts of gender variant clothes.

Yeah, what Lindsay said: ‘I really love the look of men’s pants, particularly cargo pants and looser jeans, but I have hips and a booty and so I have learned that the men’s section is off limits to me.’ Most years I can’t even find anything in the women’s section that I want to wear. Occasionally a look will come into fashion that puts a few clothes I’d feel comfortable in into the shops but I wish I didn’t have to depend on that.

(And I need to be able to reliably buy clothes for the office as well as casual stuff – women’s blouses are usually too, well, blowsy, and the cut of men’s shirts is wrong wrong wrong for my body…)

Yes, yes, a thousand times, YES!! As the spouse of a transgender woman (who’s 6’4″!) we have a hard time finding her clothing that’s pretty, fashionable, comfy, and with an inseam that allows her to wear even the lowest of heels! (Don’t even *mention* how hard it is to find shoes…) I would love to participate in this – I have an Ebay store that carries petite and average-sized clothing (I have an Etsy site, too – it’s TheVaVaVoomShoppe.etsy.com) but I’ve always wanted to expand them into stores that both trans women and trans men could shop at!

I’m kinda tech unsavvy…can one make a video using a digital camera? I don’t have a webcam. Thanks! :)

And yep, most regular digital cameras have a “video” option. If you can’t figure it out, just email me with the model of camera you have, and I can probably tell you how to do it. :) ( sarah at sarahdopp dot com)

Here’s something I wrote last fall about clothing and how it changes my sense of whether I “look good”:

“If I just think about it internally, I like the idea of projecting a mishmash of gender attributes, of confusing people and leaving them unsure of how to categorize me. The problem is that then I look at myself and I feel confused and I have no idea how to categorize myself. And I don’t like it! It’s uncomfortable in… exactly the same way that I want to make other people uncomfortable. I am hoist by my own androgynous petard.

“It’s additionally odd to realize that when I look at photos of myself in male clothes, I feel like I’m failing at masculinity, but when I look in the mirror at my naked body, I feel like I’m failing in femininity. I wear dresses because they’re comfortable, but the way they show off my chest and hips makes me feel like my shorn head and hairy ankles don’t match the rest of my body. When I wear pants and t-shirts, I contemplate chest binding. I get a little twitchy thinking about starting to go dancing again and wearing all those swirly skirts and having them be completely at odds with my short-short-short hair; I think about letting it grow out a bit so it’s nice and femme for big dance events, and I love the idea of feeling pretty again. (I really, really miss feeling pretty. I especially miss being able to just casually assume that my partner thinks I’m pretty. I know he thinks I’m good-looking and sexy. That’s not the same thing. And for all I know he does think I’m pretty, but since I don’t feel pretty, it’s very hard to imagine anyone else thinking I am.) Then I think about finding some nice comfortable dance-suitable pants and dancing men’s roles more often, and about wearing my tailcoat and full-on white tie drag to next year’s ball, and I think that sounds awesome. I guess I’m just very ‘either/or’ right now, and not at all in the mood to embrace the power of ‘and’, nor the question mark of ‘neither’.

“My desire to look pretty seems to be mostly tied to wanting to be able to relax and not have to think about this stuff very much. At the same time, I place a lot of value on awareness and daily conscious choice around things like gender presentation and outward markers of identity.

“I’m politically and philosophically opposed to, and generally suspicious of, any attempt to take shortcuts by doing what mainstream culture wants me to do. That way lies madness of the self-hating variety because it so blatantly contradicts the part of me that wants to be politically conscious and aware.

“I think it would be much saner and safer to think a lot more about what I want to look like, and to create my own ideoculture whose norms reflect my politics in some baseline-consistent way. I can then rely on those ideocultural norms the way I currently want to rely on mainstream cultural norms. (I’ve done this in the past in some ways, such as developing my winter “uniform” of turtleneck and jeans; once it’s turtleneck weather, I can spend four to six months completely not thinking about my sartorial choices while not feeling like I’m buying in to any mainstream notion of appropriate feminine attire.) (And that makes me wonder how much of this is a reaction to wearing overtly gendered and female-body-shape-displaying clothes all summer, mostly because all my t-shirts are fairly snug and skirts are infinitely more comfortable in the heat than pants.)

“Once I figure out what I want to look like and have easy comfortable appealing basic styles to fall back on, it will be much easier to look in the mirror and know that I look the way I want to look and feel that I look good, and that will make me happier and everything will be better.”

So to that end, I would love a place to shop where I can not just find clothes that fit and flatter but also really develop my own styles–plural, because I’m different people on different days, and each of those people should be able to look in my closet and find something to wear that looks and feels good.

I am pretty closeted as genderqueer in my daily life. Coming out to the people closest to me as a college student resulted in disbelief and incomprehension from most everyone, so I rarely bother anymore. My personal style is marked by an utter lack of style – ripped t-shirts, grungy hoodies and hand me downs from my sister carry the collection. My body is unfortunately too curvaceous for me to look good in the dude jeans and suits I love.

But now that I’ve discovered my calling as a Heavy Metal Drag King, I’m going to have to figure out how to look awesome. So, this project would be a great personal help to me both on a fashion and community level. Thank you so much for dreaming it up!

This concept doesn’t exactly apply to me, but I think it’s a fantastic idea, and I just want to throw that out there. It wouldn’t benefit me personally, but it could benefit a lot of people I know, and moreover, I see something something like your genderplayful marketplace as potentially being a part of something bigger, something important.

The ready-to-wear market and the fashion industry have failed us in ways beyond counting – all of us, to one degree or another. There need to be alternatives, lots of them, to shopping at the mall, at boutiques, at off-price stores, and at couture houses. Alternatives that focus on people, rather than on the market. Alternatives that enable people to dress how they want, for who they are, regardless of sex, gender, size, or shape.

Clothes that leave people feeling not-themselves are a huge problem in the genderqueer arena, but they’re a problem far beyond that as well, and I really hope that this marketplace is successful, and becomes a part of a larger movement away from consuming clothing as it is as thrown at us. Appearance, including clothing, is part of the nonverbal communication that shapes and informs our interactions as human beings – we should be able to communicate the messages that are important to us, rather than being limited by the fashion industry and its limited notions of style, fit, and identity.

I don’t think a video from me – a comfortably cis-gendered woman who dresses to play up her curves and favors fluffy skirts – would quite fit your mission, but I’ll do everything I can to get the word out about this to people who would benefit very personally from what you’re doing. It’s wonderful.

I’ve never seen a group of people just exploding with vitality, creativity, uniqueness! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked into a retail store and been completely ignored by salessheep, or just plain asked to leave, because I didn’t seem like I would “find what I was looking for” at their store. Ack. I want to wear, design, make, sell, FIND things that make me feel good, whether it’s an unusual texture for a commonplace article, amazing detailing, clothing that transports me to a happy place. Yeah. This is a very good thing, Sarah Dopp. It doesn’t matter if I mate straight, I want the world to be a fun, safe, happy place for all players and playmates. I want to see people just loving who they are, and to feel free to show who they are NOT. This fat, pagan, tattooed, Republican, meat-eating, grandmama of two salutes and supports what you’re doing, and I’ll do my level best to get the word out to all my communities and networks.

I think this is a wonderful idea!
I am a big barely butch androgyne with large breasts, wide shoulders, no waist to speak of and hips less than my waist measurement. I would love a business suit or two that fitS like a glove. 3 button jacket, grouses, vest, masculine style, unusually pretty suiting fabric! By producing the same items for both conventionally male and female bodies, I could get a ‘womans’ jacket and ‘mens’ trousers.
I am also a dandy!
I have a fancy for steampunk! I would love a double breasted silk vest in peacock blue or claret.
I want beautifully tailored, dandified masculine clothes that will fit me and look like they were meant for me. I love silk, cotton lawn, twill, tweed, English leather, fine Australian merino wool. I also love male dress from the Jane Austen era.

Although I am 44 years old, I am newly awakened to this. As I search to buy pieces of clothing that at long last feel right to me, I discover my real self in the mirror. What an amazing feeling this is. How comfortable, how nice this satisfaction.

I wonder if I would have had the courage/wisdom to do this twenty years ago, what Life would have held for me.

I would greatly appreciate such a website as you describe and hope to patronize it.

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